And I don’t agree that other writers will view you as competition. I’ve met several writers who are happy to talk to me — provided I do my own research first.

Read Bob Bly’s and Peter Bowerman’s books on freelancing. They’ll be invaluable to you.

I started freelancing when I got pregnant, to supplement our income. I’m hoping to build up enough work and I think I’m almost there. Best of luck to you!

It’ll be difficult at first (and at times later on), but it’ll be great working for your self. If there’s any advice I could give, it’s to never forget to unwind and have fun every once in a while. I went on for seven months without a single day off (I worked even on weekends) before, and my mind and body gave out.

A freelancing schedule is quite flexible … but you do work by yourself alot … which can be a potential downside. (well for me anyways!)

All the best!

Way to go! Sounds like he’s a little paranoid, probably not trusting of you as an employee either. Sometimes that lost or quit job is the best thing to happen. Your mind frees up because you don’t have to protect yourself and feel so guarded.

It’s not easy to make changes, so congrats and best wishes to all who have made the plunge.

As I am a nurse and I write about health and medicine he demanded to see any work I intended to have published (as in in the magazines I write for), as he wanted to scrutinize the content to ensure it did not reflect badly on the company….. what a cheek!

I take my writing seriously and pride myself on my work and to be subjected to insulting connotations by someone who is neither medically trained nor a writer was quite frankly the icing on the cake for me!

I have built up a great client base for my writing projects and felt that in actual fact my boss kinda did me a favor by giving me the shove I needed!

It’s all about marketing yourself. (You can write, that’s not a problem, it’s the selling your work that is the issue right?)

So tomorrow, do your homework. Come up with 3 places you’d like to write for. Write 3 pitches then send the letters (emails) out. The next day, do it again and do it again. (Keep track of what you’re sending out). You’ll get no’s, no answers, and questions but eventually you’ll start getting yeses. Do the work, but don’t stop pitching. When the work load becomes too much, then set aside 1 day to mail out pitches, but keep doing it. It’s all about stuffing the pipeline.

If you’re a decent writer and you make good on your deadlines, within six months you’ll have more work than you can handle.

At the beginning, the dollars may not be that good, but once you’ve got the ball rolling you start trading up. Give up the 10 dollar job for 20 job, for the 100 job.

The big point here is don’t rely on answering job ads – for everyone there are way too many people responding. Make opportunities for yourself but pitching to the places you want to write for.

Good luck

I quit my full-time job about a month ago because my husband and I are planning a move overseas. I wasn’t going to do anything with my newly found free time, except relax. It’s just that I couldn’t relax – I needed to stay creative and busy. So I started freelancing.

It’s been almost a month, and I’ve landed a few projects. I put my portfolio on Elance, Guru, iFreelance, GetAFreelancer, and WriterLance, plus I tapped into my network of former co-workers and business acquaintances. It’s not anywhere near what I was making full-time; but I reckon I can keep building up my clientele to where I’m making that much in six months.

I’m with you – we can at least give it the old college try. And that’s what counts!

That should read freelanced, not freelanceed.

I don’t have loads of advice to give you, but I’d say to set small goals and work toward them. I left teaching to try and make the move to working in educational publishing. The first year I freelanceed, I made next to nothing and seriously had to consider what I was going to do. Last year, I made 1/3 of my teaching income (before taxes.) This year, as of this moment in May, I’m about $1000 short of making what I did all of last year. It’s still not what I made teaching, but it’s baby steps of improvement. I can now comfortably pay my health insurance premiums without freaking out about how to come up with that money. Hopefully, I’ll make more progress in the coming years as well. Don’t let the enormity of the decision that you made overwhelm you. Set small goals that will ultimately lead you toward larger ones.

So, as I’ve been pursuing writing gigs posted online,I’ve also asked friends for recommendations, extended my linkedin network, offered my services out for free (I’ll begin volunteering with the Taproot Foundation, which will connect me with media professionals who might in the long run be able to offer me jobs), made myself a website http://wordsmith.vpweb.com , and applied to temp agencies for legal and financial proofreading jobs.

Apparently, legal and financial proofreading is pretty lucrative. All in all I wish you the best of luck…. Even if you are competition.

Really, we have one major paper in this area and the quality has gone downhill quickly. I’ve always made it a game to go through with a red pen. It used to be rare to find any mistakes, but now I’m finding mistakes that are horrifying. In one, a local teacher wrote about her experiences and spelled kindergarten – kindergarden. I find that unacceptable.

The amount of trashing that is allowed is also not cool. One of my former neighbors is the Game Warden for the area. Last year a bull moose went rampant in a downtown Burlington neighborhood in the heat of mating season. Now this is Vermont’s largest city and a bull moose in the downtown area is bad news. Kids walk to and from school and it happened to be time for school to let out. They had two options, tranquilize the moose and hope it dropped sooner than later or two shoot to kill. He opted to shoot to kill. I know him well enough to know it wasn’t an easy decision. Article writers flooded the newspaper with articles on how he was going to go straight to hell and that maybe people should line up and shoot him. The fact that the paper printed this stuff really bothered me, but the fact people were willing to say it at all was worse.

While I didn’t like seeing that the moose was killed, I can only imagine the outcry if he’d opted to tranquilize it and it trampled some kids walking from school before it went down.

The local paper here pays $50.00 flat per article. After reading this paper for over 3 years now I can honestly say there’s nothing in that paper I can’t do in less than a couple hours.

It’s amazing what people will do to see their work on TV/in print.

Funny this post went up today as I just handed in my notice as well. LOL, small world and great minds really do think alike.

Now that I’m done dispensing the cliches….

In all honesty, I’ve picked up a couple of clients from this board and then I had the good fortune to be working with a freelance company called The Brighter Writer. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be ok. Plus, I’m a screenwriter, so this frees up time for me to work on scripts as well. I don’t get paid to write them unless I’m contracted, but the sale of one script would be more than 10 years salary at my current job. Which would you chose? I’m not happy at the day job, plain and simple. For me, the choice was easy. I fully expect there to be times that I struggle, but the only thing I can do is give it my all. I’m confident that my skills and perseverance will get me through.

I think it’s a wonderful idea to talk to other writers! I have found writers to be some of the best people in the world – I’ve mentioned this before I know. But, it’s worth repeating because it’s the truth. Most writers are willing to share their knowledge. Occasionally you run into the old grouch who isn’t interested in helping anyone but themselves, but they probably aren’t very happy doing what they’re doing.

Anyway, great post! Best of luck to you and please keep us updated on how it goes!

Kristy

Don’t forget your local chamber of commerce — there are plenty of opportunities in there.

And maybe your old company will hire you to write as a freelancer for them!

I’m a big advocate of quitting the day job. In my own experience and watching other freelancers, it forces you to run out of excuses for why you’re not writing.

I do believe you can’t jump into it blind, and I don’t believe Jessica has. The loss of one income is a shock but we made adjustments and did fine. Now I’m earning more than I did at an office job.

As for where to start, everyone has different experience. I had a mixture of smaller $15 gigs mixed in with the bigger gigs. The smaller gigs really helped to pick up the slack and keep me fresh between the bigger gigs. It’s easy to rely on these places and get into a rut, so it’s best not to keep all one’s eggs in one’s basket.

Read, research and learn everything you can about freelancing. Then find the jobs and the pay working best for your situation.

1)Are you the majority (by a large margin) breadwinner for your family? If so, think long and hard before making the leap. I was in that situation 16 years ago with a wife who was five months pregnant. But my job moved, so my decision was made for me. I knew about some expenses of the self-employed (the “other half of FICA,”), as well as some of the benefits (own hours) and challenges (collections) thanks to my work as a business writer.

2. Do you have the discipline to work without an office/job structure?

3. Do you have savings to draw on if accounts go south?

4. Do you have a passion for the business. Passion is necessary to make up for the challenges of sales you don’t have in a job (unless it’s a sales job).

5. How is the market for what you have to offer? If you’re a sportswriter (I’m a reformed one), there are plenty of people who will do what you do for free just to get into games. Though you can make some money as a freelance sportswriter, being financially successful with that background is tougher than if you have a skill that’s in less supply.

But . . . everyone has their own goals and needs.

Have you done any freelancing work while working full time? If so, go to your editors and tell them about your change in status. I did that with an editor I worked for and she bumped up my work load from one or two articles a month to six or seven.

Patience is the most important virtue to being a freelancer. Don’t get too stressed if it takes longer than six months. Don’t panic if you don’t hear back from editors immediately. The key is to treat this as building a business, which it is.

Make sure the newspaper will pay first. Many of the newspapers around me opened up their doors to free submissions for those looking to build bylines. So what was once a money-making market is now open to anyone who wants to see their name in print.